The Red Dream

Chapter 1From Turning Point to Turning Point

Now people suddenly think we are lovable!

—Senior official, Boao Forum, April 2009

Beijing: huge black Yukons, Suburbans, and Navigators swept by at 160 kilometers an hour on the airport expressway rushing to receive two American presidents. Making a dark wall, they thundered down the fast lane locking in two lanes of Chinese commuters. It seemed awe-inspiring. The next day, August 8, 2008, at 8 o'clock in the morning the two presidents celebrated the opening of the new US Embassy. The time was meant to be auspicious. In the evening, seated in the Bird's Nest with a roaring and heavily sweating crowd, they joined in the fantastic opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics. Two American presidents, father and son, both with China in their personal histories. Everyone was comparing the Olympics with the 1964 Tokyo Olympics that ushered Japan back into the fraternity of nations. Would 2008 mark China's big coming out party too? The welcoming of two US presidents, a new US Embassy, the large foreign population of students and expats with families, new international schools, and countless foreign tourists—the list goes on. All evidence on the ground suggested that China's WTO boom had launched it into the “normal country” orbit.

An Abrupt About-Face

But the rumblings in the background were growing louder. The US financial system appeared to be in a slow-motion collapse since early 2007. It grew slowly in intensity in early 2008 ...